american women and includes nondiscrimination provisions for all victims regardless of their race, color, religion, or gender. vawa encourages collaboration among law enforcement, judicial personnel, public and private sector providers to victims of domestic and sexual violence. it also works to increase public awareness. madam president, one in four women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. an estimated 1.3 million women are victims of sexual assault by an intimate partner every year. there are more than 18,000 cases in maryland of domestic abuse and 38 fatalities. that period of time has been the lowest number of domestic violence-related deaths on record for the state, but these numbers are still very much unacceptable. i am disappointed last year the house refused to take up legislation that we approved. it also refused to go to conference to work out differences between the two bills. i urge my colleagues to pass the legislation that is pending here and urge my colleagues in the house to quickly take up the senate bill and enact it into law. with that, madam president, i woul